⁴ that David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. ⁵ So David sent ten young men; and David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel and ^[a]visit Nabal, and greet him in my name; ⁶ and this is what you shall say: ‘^[b]Have a long life, ^(A)peace to you, and peace to your house, and peace to all that you have! ⁷ Now then, I have heard ^(B)that you have shearers. Now, your shepherds have been with us; we have not harmed them, ^(C)nor has anything of theirs gone missing all the days they were in Carmel. ⁸ Ask your young men and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we have come on ^(D)a ^[c]festive day. Please give whatever you find at hand to your servants and to your son David.’”

¹⁴ Now one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, saying, “Behold, David sent messengers from the wilderness to ^[a](A)greet our master, and he spoke to them in anger. ¹⁵ Yet the men were very good to us, and we were not ^(B)harmed, nor did anything go missing ^[b]as long as we went with them, while we were in the fields. ^16 (C)They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the time we were with them tending the sheep.